Corey picked the most amazing rose from our backyard bush. I planted this bush many, many years ago, and it still offers up the most beautiful blooms every year. It’s called a Peace Rose. Here are a few select shots:
Music by Lianne La Havas, featuring Willy Mason, “No Room For Doubt”
a woman had placed
after jorge luis borges
a yellow rose
in a hotel glass
the man had kissed her
on the neck
had kissed her
on the mouth
but these kisses belonged to yesterday
there would be no moment
of revernalization
yellow roses came from china
open in may before our hybrids
unfold pink rugosities and baroque scent
expose dusty fissured yellow pearls
I came across the following article by Amanda Gorence on my Tumblr dash, and I thought that it was an incredible commentary on the world. How our children play is directly tied to our society, and the portrait is sometimes more than a little sad.
Shot over a period of 18 months, Italian photographer Gabriele Galimberti’s project Toy Stories compiles photos of children from around the world with their prized possesions—their toys. Galimberti explores the universality of being a kid amidst the diversity of the countless corners of the world; saying, “at their age, they are pretty all much the same; they just want to play.”
But it’s how they play that seemed to differ from country to country. Galimberti found that children in richer countries were more possessive with their toys and that it took time before they allowed him to play with them (which is what he would do pre-shoot before arranging the toys), whereas in poorer countries he found it much easier to quickly interact, even if there were just two or three toys between them.
There were similarites too, especially in the functional and protective powers the toys represented for their proud owners. Across borders, the toys were reflective of the world each child was born into—economic status and daily life affecting the types of toys children found interest in. Toy Stories doesn’t just appeal in its cheerful demeanor, but it really becomes quite the anthropological study.
“The Japanese Lantern” (1912) by Paul Burty Haviland
Two for Tuesday: What is temporary
“No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way, with precisely the same kisses.”
~ Wislawa Szymborska (trans. Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak), from “Nothing Twice”
Untitled [I know now the beloved]
I know now the beloved
Has no fixed abode,
That each body
She inhabits
Is only a temporary
Home.
That she
Casts off forms
As eagerly
As lovers shed clothes.
I accept that he’s
Just passing through
That flower
Or that stone.
And yet, it makes
Me dizzy—
The way he hides
In the flow of it,
The way she shifts
In fluid motions,
Becoming other things.
I want to stop him—
If only briefly.
I want to lure her
To the surface
And catch her
In this net of words.
~ Gregory Orr
Opening the Mona Lisa after WWII (photographer unknown)
Travel Elegy
Everything’s mine though just on loan,
nothing for the memory to hold,
though mine as long as I look.
Memories come to mind like excavated statues
that have misplaced their heads.
From the town of Samokov, only rain
and more rain.
Paris from Louvre to fingernail
grows web-eyed by the moment.
Boulevard Saint-MartinL some stairs
leading into a fadeout.
Only a bridge and a half
from Leningrad of the bridges.
Poor Uppsala, reduced to a splinter
of its mighty cathedral.
Sofia’s hapless dancer,
a form without a face.
Then separately, his face without eyes;
separately again, his eyes with no pupils,
and, finally, the pupils of a cat.
A Caucasian eagle soars
over the reproduction of a canyon,
the fool’s gold of the sun,
the phony stones.
Everything’s mine but just on loan,
nothing for the memory to hold,
though mine as long as I look.
Inexhaustible, unembracable,
but particular to the smallest fiber,
grain of sand, drop of water—
landscapes.
I won’t retain one blade of grass
as it’s truly seen.
Salutation and farewell
in a single glance.
For surplus and absence alike,
a single motion of the neck.
~ Wislawa Szymborska
Music by Cat Power, “Who Knows Where the Time Goes”
“y nadie puede, nadie puede evadir los pasos del corazón que corre callado y carnicero” (and no one — no one — can escape the heart’s progress as it runs, silent and carnivorous.) ~ Pablo Neruda, from Sonnet LXXI (71), trans. Stephen Tapscott
Happy Anniversary, my love. One day, we will see Paris and all of the other places on our list.
Music by Elton John, “Love Song”
If You Forget Me
I want you to know
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
A flaky end to an off-kilter week. Corey came home yesterday. Had Olivia on Wednesday and Thursday. Kept thinking yesterday was Saturday, so today is Friday? Didn’t check my e-mail for two days, so missed the one from Corey saying he would be in port on Friday. Kept thinking he would be here Sunday. Mother’s Day and anniversary quickly approaching and haven’t gotten cards. Very, very weird dreams about a plague outbreak in Corey’s hometown which turned into a cruise ship. Got kicked off the cruise ship because the captain didn’t like us. Woke up coughing. Couldn’t find my regular green tea mochi at the international market. Think I have an off-batch of Corona; that ever happen to you that the beer tastes slightly off? Olivia’s first tooth is almost through, and she pulled herself to a stand this morning, which means everything on tables is now up for grabs. One of Brett’s best friends is graduating college today, and I’ve known this kid since he was born, so I’m feeling incredibly old. Got a letter from health insurance that they consider trigger shots experimental. What the? I’ve been getting trigger shots for almost a decade to great positive effect. Hate health insurance. Neither of my sons will be home for Mother’s Day. What did I expect? Anyway, here’s a little collection of weirdness from me to you:
First, Jimmy Fallon and John Krasinski have a lip-sync competition, and the results are epic.
Robin Williams still rocks . . .
BBC show “Vicious”
Banana bunkers?
Remember this?
A little Fry
and finally . . . time for a nap . . .
Music by Ex Guru, “The Hunt”
The Bouquet
Between me and the world
you are a bay, a sail
the faithful ends of a rope
you are a fountain, a wind,
a shrill childhood cry.
Between me and the world
you are a picture frame, a window
a field covered in wildflowers
you are a breath, a bed,
a night that keeps the stars company.
Between me and the world,
you are a calendar, a compass
a ray of light that slips through the gloom
you are a biographical sketch, a book mark
a preface that comes at the end.
between me and the world
you are a gauze curtain, a mist
a lamp shining in my dreams
you are a bamboo flute, a song without words
a closed eyelid carved in stone.
Between me and the world
you are a chasm, a pool
an abyss plunging down
you are a balustrade, a wall
a shield’s eternal pattern.
